A good couple of months ago, when we were just starting to shed our winter layers in favour of milder twenty-something degree days, I said to my partner: “2021 is rosé year”.
As an initial explanation, I played into the emotional reasoning, waxing poetic on the romantic joie de vivre inherent in the colour pink, and therefore in the wine by immediate extension.
“We’ve all been locked up in our homes for months now. There’s always an air of liberation around springtime, but this year it’s even more intense”.
He wasn’t convinced – so I whipped out the numbers. At that point, the connection between Lamborghini looking at having their best year in sales and my projection that rosé would have a similarly exceptional year wasn’t persuasive enough. But soon, the craze became apparent: people wanted their lives back, and they wanted it en rose.
Here in the North of Italy, we’re not too far from Provence. Sadly, this doesn’t equal a steady supply flow, and one can only pin this down to the local preferences. For this reason as well, the (conventional) Italian rosés on offer are (save one or two exceptions) at best: average, and at worst, reminiscent of that ‘monkey blood’ merbromin antiseptic our mothers applied on our scraped knees as children. The sparkling rosé wines have unfortunately, formed the majority of the latter category.
Rosé as a market segment has seen incredible growth over the past 20 years. In 1990, the pink stuff made up only 10,8% of French consumption of wine. By 2015, that had gone up to 31,2%. In 2020, France was confirmed as the biggest consumer of rosé wine worldwide, chugging up to 35% of global production. The remainder of Europe, as well as the United States, follows closely behind.
You can only stare facts in the face for so long before they become impossible to ignore. In October 2020, the Prosecco DOC Consortium, after two years of test production, finally authorised the sale of the Prosecco Rosé DOC – a wine produced with Glera grapes (as per the standard Prosecco) with the addition of 10-15% Pinot Noir, among other strict requirements.
Valdo is no novice in the Prosecco game, having been awarded the Berliner Wine Trophy for the best sparkling wine producer in Italy. It seems only natural, then, that they should be part of the trailblazers in releasing the Prosecco Rosé DOC.
The colouring of a rosé is infinitely more important than that of other wines. No other type of wine evokes as much admiration – or alternatively, predicts a headache as accurately. Here, as I’m pouring the first glass, I’m filled with a kind of feminine euphoria. It’s a beautiful colour: silky, romantic and elegant.
On the nose, I’m met with the aromas of fresh orange peel and small red berries, like redcurrant and cranberry. A delicate floral element decorates the senses. A few moments later, once she’s opened up a little, there are distinct notes of pear.
The palate, following through from the secondary aromas, hosts the usual ‘Prosecco’ suspects of apple and pear. Red fruit makes an appearance here too, creating a fullness of body which is absent from most Prosecco. In this way, she is markedly heavier than her ancestors (- but aren’t we all?). Despite this, a key balance is achieved through her acidity and dryness, who lift the palate ever so slightly, but oh so crucially.
On first blush, this wine struck me as a ‘bathtub’ rosé. On discovering the fruitiness of the nose, however, I swiftly recategorised her as ‘garden party.’ This was short-lived – as the palate soon revealed that she belonged to neither of these categories, nor even that of ‘steakhouse’ whose first wine was the topic of the first ever newsletter. This is not a rosé to be drunk alone; however, nor is it the type to be shared amongst friends on a picnic blanket.
As I poured myself another glass and stared into its depths, an image came to life: the sunset, a small boat on the Venetian lagoon, two figures huddled closely together.. Ah yes, this is a ‘lovers’ rosé.
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